[Vision2020] A few facts about Palouse water

[david sarff]

Mr Courtney,
While I agree that yours and others questions are appropriate to be asked 
and deserve to be answered, I suspect that many people may not know how 
precipitously close Moscow may be to loosing local control of its water to 
the very sort of outside government that seemingly most local residents 
don’t want.
It is my impression that the bottom-line fact being argued is that local 
governments have an agreement (a standard) that the City of Moscow has been 
violating for years.
I assume and surely hope that the original agreement was based on local 
consensus based on information derived through the influence of generally 
agreed to scientific standards. If not, then these should be reinvestigated. 
  If so, they should be upheld and enforced.
    David Sarff


>
>A few facts about Palouse water
>
>It's a nice change of pace to see Wayne Olson's letter to the editor
>(Opinion, July 9) asking for facts, not rhetoric, about "our aquifer."
>
>
>First fact: There are at least two aquifers below Pullman and Moscow. There
>may be more, but two are known to all drillers and geologists in the area.
>
>
>Second fact: The water level of the upper (more shallow) aquifer is not
>dropping at all. Indeed, water levels in the upper aquifer have done 
>nothing
>but rise in my lifetime (I'm 43).
>
>
>Third fact: The water levels near Moscow-Pullman city wells in the lower
>aquifer are dropping. That statement, however, does not imply that the 
>water
>levels farther away are dropping (it's a huge aquifer) nor does it imply
>that we "will run out" of water in the lower aquifer. Ask another geologist
>if you don't care to believe me on these points.
>
>
>Fourth fact: Most water used in both Moscow and Pullman during the summer 
>is
>not consumed by "new housing developments," a favorite target of members of
>the Moscow Civic Association (most of whom, of course, were new arrivals on
>the Palouse themselves some years back). Most water used in the summer goes
>to watering golf courses, not to flushing the toilets of new city 
>residents.
>
>
>
>More facts and less fear could greatly help move our public discussion of
>water use forward. Thanks, Wayne, for asking.
>
>
>Elsa Kirsten Peters
>
>
>Pullman
>
>David Camden-Britton -=)*(=-  davidcb@acm.org
>_____________________________________________________ List services made
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>

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